Here's my update...
I bought both versions and after reading several threads like these, re Maestro is really a rip off of Firebird, I got my money back for both purchases.
However, I had such great results demo trading, that I went live a couple of weeks ago with the Advanced version, which still works, because there is no registration per se - more BS. I too made the mistake of trying to second guess the EA, and lost a few trades that I didn't have to, and missed out on extra profits had I been patient.
The Advanced version has settings in the manual that are optimized for 5 min charts, with a TP = 26, SL = 300, TS = 30. Also different MA settings. It recommends the same 4 pairs. It also has money management settings too and time ranges for trading.
I noticed different pairs showing wins on the Maestro marketing hype page, so in addition to the recommended 4, I've been testing the following... EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/USD. The best so far have been EUR/JPY - 1 loss, AUD/USD - 0 loss, the others have had 2-3 losses, spoiling the W/L ratio. I didn't have as good luck with EUR/USD and USD/CAD. Test results may be better next week per the changes I made, outlined below.
I've been trading the 4 pairs that tested best... EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, USD/CHF. I don't think in terms of dollars/day/week, I think in terms of % return daily/weekly, and how my average daily pips can translate into the maximum return with the lowest possible risk. It's a balancing act to get the lot setting just right. Remember, just 15% ROI daily for 5 days = double your account.
Last week I doubled my account in 4.5 days - 105%. To be fair, I made 1 manual sell trade at the top on that EUR/GBP trade that went sour for everyone - it lowered my loss. And I've got 2 open negative trades that should work out OK next week.
After trading with it for several weeks I've come to the conclusion that a 300 PIP SL is the best - I had 255, but I monitor the trades carefully to make sure they won't hit the full SL.
I've also changed the TP to 50. On another forum a user has had great success with a TP of 50, so that's why I set it there. If it doesn't reach the full TP, the TS of 25 will save the trade.
I analyzed some of the problem trades from last week, and I found that if I had left a TS - I had removed it - I would have avoided those trades that wasted days in negative pipage. So my analysis shows that a TS is valuable. Yes you'll have a portion of winning trades that are smaller, but you'll most likely avoid a few large draw downs too, so it's worth it IMHO. Plus, the pair will move on to trade again, instead of hanging in hell doing nothing.
The demo account had 7 different pairs trading and had 61 wins and 5 losses. On the demo account I noticed that a couple of trades closed at a loss of around 100 pips, via the EA settings to close losers > -65 pips, after 72 hours. Those were losing trades in the end, so this method cut the losses by 1/3. That's not always going to be the case.
The last thing is PIP Step. The default settings of 30 and 10 open trades is too intense for me, so I've decided to use a PS = 54 and 2 trades open max. That way, since most trades go negative for a while, and many go 100+, I'll at least get another trade if it reaches -54, and make +54 pips or more when the trade inevitably returns to profit, as most trades do. So all that waiting for a trade to resolve, will result in an extra win+. So it's like getting 2 trades for 1. As my account grows, I may change Max Open Orders to 3, so I get another trade when it goes negative past 108 pips.
I think these changes will improve my W/L ratio and pips/trade as well, resulting in even better ROIs daily and weekly. Trading 4 pairs, that means I could possibly have 8 open negative trades, so I calculate my lot size to make sure that each trade has enough breathing room to live, without out getting me into margin call territory.
Anyway, these are my findings and thoughts. Glad to see a good thread going so we can collaborate to improve our results.
I too got the Forex Fantasy eMail - with a 60 day return via ClickBank, you can't loose, so why not.
